Nintendo Super Mario Belt WIP I

Nintendo Super Mario Belt WIP I

Above is my first photo of a Super Mario belt work-in-progress:

My earliest memories of my brother are of his silhouette jumping up and down in front of the TV. He was 5 years old, playing a Super Mario game on Nintendo. He jumped every time his mustachoid hero jumped, on his quest to rescue the princess from the evil Bowser.

My brother is about to turn 24, and I want to give him a gift that reflects his personality. Even now, he occasionally hums the classic tunes from the original Super Mario game, so I’ve incorporated his favourite thing into a Super Mario leather belt. It has the final level tooled onto it with as much detail as I could muster on the 1 1/2 inch width. I found a Mario belt buckle on Ebay which will provide the final touch. I found an image of the level using google, and it has been tooled to be true to the level. I’m sure by geeky brother will appreciate this, as he remembers every hidden crevice of every game he’s played!

The only change I had to make was to carve the monsters a little bigger. I also carved Mario together with the princess at the billet end of the belt, and I used an updated better-looking image of the pair. The original was too pixelated to transfer to leather very well.

My next step for today is to start colouring the belt. I can’t wait to finish this and see his reaction to his custom Super Mario Belt made of leather!